Raytheon facility wins Northeast gold medal Shingo Prize

The Raytheon Company's Maritime Mission Center in Portsmouth, R.I., is a 2007 gold-medal recipient of the Northeast Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing.

"Achieving gold status for Shingo is an important validation and reflects the passion that Raytheon employees have demonstrated to implement lean manufacturing," said Dan Ryan, vice president of Operations for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. "We intend to remain a thought leader in this key capability for bringing the very best 'no doubt' systems to our warfighters."

The Maritime Mission Center is a 768,000-square-foot multidiscipline manufacturing engineering and program support facility employing close to 1,600 people. The Maritime Mission Center is IDS' mission center dedicated to the development and delivery of highly capable, advanced naval and maritime solutions for U.S. and allied navies.

Dubbed the "Nobel Prize of Manufacturing" by Business Week, the Shingo Prize is recognized as one of the premier manufacturing awards and recognition programs in North America for the practice of lean manufacturing, a methodology that eliminates waste from business processes. The prize is administered by GBMP Inc. at the University of Massachusetts' College of Management. Raytheon's Maritime Mission Center received the silver medal in 2006.

Raytheon sustains its continuous improvement culture and the elimination of waste through its Lean Initiatives for Value Excellence, Raytheon Six Sigma and the Manufacturing Excellence Model. Its lean manufacturing strategy includes the use of integrated product teams, flexible and decentralized facilities, and the integrated product development system. As a result of these and other lean methods, Raytheon is consistently reducing waste and increasing quality throughout its operations.

Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Joint Battlespace Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a broad international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Armed Forces and the Department of Homeland Security.

Raytheon Company, with 2006 sales of $20.3 billion, is a technology leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 85 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as a broad range of mission support services. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 73,000 people worldwide.